Presque Minuit
by LifesVictory
Summary: Almost Midnight There was no intoxication, no fairytale, no poetic closure. It was just them, and it was perfect. JackSam


**Author's Note: **Hope you all enjoy this; it was nice to write and I was listening to my boyfriend playing piano in the next room, which was a lovely, lovely background. I'm not trying to steer this in any sort of direction, plotwise. I like holiday fics with Jack and Sam, so hopefully you will too. And by the way, at the end, I have no idea if it's "matter who" or "matter whom" so if it bothers anyone, well, it's bothering me, too. Enjoy.

**_Presque Minuit_.**

(Almost Midnight)

December 31. New Year's Eve.

She stood outside the ballroom on the balcony and listened to the thrum of the city. The lights were dimmed, the music swelled, and her brain was pounding.

_I can't believe I agreed to this_, Samantha thought bitterly, massaging her temples. _What the hell am I doing here? I don't want to be here. I want to go home. Please take me home…_

As if on cue, Martin stepped through the open French doors, nursing a glass of champagne. She didn't turn around to recognize him. She wanted to be difficult. He placed his glass on the stone railing and slid his hands around her middle, kissing her neck.

"Happy New Year's, baby," he mumbled, champagne strong on his breath. Samantha squirmed out of his grasp and leaned on the rail. Damn, her head ached. She turned and placed her hands on the lapels of his tuxedo jacket with an appealing smile.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered, looking up at him. "We don't need this; let's go home. My head is killing me from all this music, anyways." Martin answered her plea with exasperatedly drunken eyes.

"Can't you just take an asprin?" The smile faltered and her hands slipped from his jacket. He was drunk. She couldn't believe it; he was actually drunk. Sam caught herself wondering what his father would think if he could see his son now.

_What was she, his mother?_

"Fine, Martin," she sighed, unhitching his hands from dangerously close to her behind. "Fine, if you want to stay around and get sloshed with all your 'war buddies' go ahead, but I'm tired. I'll see you at home."

"Come on, Sam! It's not even midnight yet." Martin caught her hand as she brushed past him and she turned back around a few degrees.

"My watch is fast." His hand loosened and she took advantage of the hesitation to break away. Sam caught his unfocused eyes for a second before disappearing inside the dark ballroom full of New York City's finest FBI agents.

It was strange to see them all outside of the office. She barely recognized Vivian, who dressed in a beautiful creamy-satin gown. Her friend, Audrey, who worked a few floors below her, dropped her work suit for a tight crimson cocktail dress and heels. But she had worn a simple black gown which dropped to the ground and had a knee-high slit. The back sank to the small of her back in a sharp V, but she felt out of place, none the less. Sam grabbed her purse and coat and struggled through the crowd toward the elevator.

Danny removed himself a girl he was twirling around the floor to touch her shoulder in concern and ask her if she was alright, which she appreciated, but she assured him she was just tired. She saw Martin slowly ease back into the ballroom. He wore his tuxedo as a second skin. She guessed with a family such as his it was nothing he wasn't used to. Sam punched the elevator button and smirked as she saw someone heading toward her, bumping awkwardly into his colleagues as he moved.

She was happy to realize he looked as awful in a tuxedo as she felt at that very moment.

"I didn't think you'd be here," Sam said, leaning against the wall while she waited. Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged with a weak laugh.

"Vivan sort of bribed me into coming."

Sam looked up. "What was the bait?"

Jack stared at the ground and said nothing. She felt a familiar unnerving tingling at the base of her spine and worked her arms into her coat. He coughed gruffly and helped her into it. "Are you leaving?"

"My head hurts and I'm tired," she sighed, glancing up at the indicator which pointed at the floor the car was rising to. Eight. They were on the twenty-first. Jack watched her closely and Sam broke down a little. "Martin's drunk."

Jack grinned boyishly and looked behind him. "So is the majority of the populus."

"I'm not," Sam snapped. Twelve. "I just want to get back to my place." _Come with me. Walk me home._ They were silent as the swing music egged the party into a more animated, giddy, drunken mess. Someone bumped into Jack from behind and nearly toppled him into her. He was too close, and there was no way for a clean exit. He placed his arm on the wall next to her head.

"You look good." Jack whispered in her ear. He was drunk. This wasn't him; this wasn't Jack. Jack was inhibited, reserved, correct. This wasn't Jack whispering in her ear, standing closer than she'd been to him in almost a year. She wanted him to be drunk, but there was no alcohol on his breath. She tore her eyes away from him and looked up. Seventeen.

"Jack, I can't do this again." Sam said in a small voice. Vulnerable. He'd never seen her like this before. Her eyes shone into his like dark pools. Jack could have done it right then. It was his moment; he could have stolen it from her and she wouldn't have resisted. His hand almost twitched in anticipation, but he clenched it into a fist and smiled soberly, hiding all.

He let out a long breath through his teeth as the elevator door behind them opened with a muffled 'ding'. Sam stood motionless for a moment, her eyes still with him. "Twenty-one," she choked out.

"Twenty-one," he agreed, and watched her back into the elevator. _Let her go._

The loudspeaker boomed an annoucement that it was forty-five minutes until midnight, and he blinked. He lost them, the eyes. The elevator door rushed shut and he was suddenly disoriented and perplexed. It was gone, they were gone. Where was he? What was he doing here? Why did he even start to listen to Vivian? Jack turned back around as couples kissed and squished together, breathing heavily. There wasn't enough oxygen…

He was falling backwards. The dancefloor and the flashing lights and the swing band swam past him into a blur. But he did not reach to seek their return. A hand pulled him from behind and into silence where the only sound was their breath against one another. He was pressed against her as he'd fallen back into the elevator when she grabbed him.

Jack looked down at Samantha, her blonde hair ruffled and mascara smeared where several tears had run down her cheek. The eyes were back, he was connected. It wouldn't break this time, he wouldn't let it. God_damn_, he wouldn't let it.

Sam felt his hands slide up the back of her thighs and lift her up so that she twisted her legs around his waist, and willed him to press her against the elevator wall. She sighed as his lips finally touched hers and trailed down her cheek to her neck but most lingeringly back to her mouth. There was no subliminal reason, no poetic closure, no aphrodisiac which rationalized it. They weren't drunk, intoxicated. This was just them, like it had been for a few precious moments before the complication.

Like the beginning.

They would collapse breathless into a cab and she would take him home with her and he would barely be able to keep his hands off of her as they climbed the three floors to her apartment. They would waste little time but they wouldn't rush. They would fall asleep with the lights of the city on their warm skin and would not think about anything except then. Then would be theirs, and theirs alone.

He kissed her again as the elevator slowed to an eventual stop at the lobby floor, and walked, hands touching but not quite, outside to the sidewalk. Jack slid his hand to the nape of her neck under her smooth hair and felt her sigh.

"I missed you," one of them said; it didn't matter who. He lifted his hand high to hail a cab, but kept his eyes on her. A taxi slowed to a stop beside them and Jack pried open the door with one hand for her to slide inside. Sam laughed, her face glowing, and grabbed him so that he toppled inside on top of her. The cab driver, with a look that plainly showed he'd seen it all, asked them "where to".

"Just drive. We'll find home eventually," someone said, and, to all three of them, it didn't really matter who.

_Finis._


End file.
